Malik Ishtar, Tomb Explorer
by Tabula Rasa
Summary: Malik falls into a tomb and gets more than he bargained for.
1. part the first

**Title:** Malik Ishtar, Tomb Explorer  
**Rating:** PG-13 for now.  
**Category:** Humour  
**Pairings:** None, at the moment. Subject to change.  
**Summary:** Malik falls into a tomb and gets more than he bargained for.  
**Spoilers:** Up to the end of Battle City, possibly the new Doomie arc. And spoilers for some stuff in the AE arc, too.  
**Notes:** Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider ate my brains. Story is from Malik's point of view.

  
  
  
"What're you doooing?" a tiny voice asked from somewhere near my ear. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a little thing hovering there, with tiny beating wings.

I declined to answer and continued to make my way down the rough stone wall. I paused for a moment, searching with my left foot for some kind of miniature ledge to step down on. It wasn't really working, hence my pausing in my path for the last minute and a half.

"What'cha doooin'?" the little voice continued and this time, I could feel tiny hands taking hold of some of my hair and tugging it slightly. Annoyed, I blew in the direction of the tiny thing. There was an angry squeak and my hair was immediately freed.

The little thing zipped around to hover in front of my face. I almost had to cross my eyes to look at it.

"Whatcha doing? Why're you here? Why're you climbing down the wall?" inquired the miniature version of my other self.

I kid you not. The little thing in front of me was an exact duplicate of the darker half of my personality - ah, good old fashioned schitzophrenia - except distinctly smaller and with tiny little black wings growing out of his back. He could have easily fit into my hand. Where he came from? I have no idea. I came home after Battle City, relatively exhausted (I blame the plane ride), and just a bit emotionally unstable (I blame him for that). I had gone into my room and found this little thing zipping around there, much like a molecule high on sugar of some sort. I promptly made my head acquainted with my desk over this.

As for the existance of him? I'm the only one who knows. Isis would probably _freak_. And not in the good "must save Malik from eeeeeviiiillll" freak, the "Malik, you haven't cleaned your room in three weeks and things are beginning to grow in there and if you do not clean it this instant, I will throw everything out that is in it!" freak. Oh, believe me, my sister can be very scary at times.

"I am obviously climbing the wall," I replied to the small version of my other self. Some times, the only way to get him to shut up is to actually answer his questions. "Why? Because it is the only way into the place I am going to."

"And where're you going?" he inquired, as I managed to find a steady foothold (finally!) and continued to make my way down the side.

"Because I can," I muttered in reply, now finding it quite easy to contine my descent down the rock wall.

That resulted in a cackle. "So it's illleeeeegaaalll?"

I really hated the way he drew out words. I also really hated the way he managed to figure things out so quickly. I also really hated the way he understood my glaring silences. Anyone else just thought I was slightly off my onion.

"Illegal! Illegal! Illegal!"

Now he was doing some odd form of a jig in mid-air. I fought down the urge to grap him and smish him against the rock wall. I already knew it would do no good. I had squished him under my shoe once and he had popped up from the floor, as odd as ever. And of course, if I tried to smish him, he would bite my hand. And he bites _hard_.

"So, where we going?" he inquired, stopping his jig and trying to look angelically.

I glanced downward. One thing I've gotta say for myself, I've got good night vision. And, due to the good extent of said night vision, I could see a hole in the ground. Except it wasn't really a hole in the ground, more of a hole in a ceiling.

"In there," I replied, dropping in through the hole. I fell about seven feet before landing in a heap on the ground and stirring up quite a lot of dust that made me hack and cough. Grace, thy name is not Malik Ishtar.

"What's in here?" much to my annoyance, the fairy-sized version of my other self had managed just to zip in without any injuries.

"Stuff, little version of my other self," was my oh-so-imformative replied. I took the flashlight out of the pocket of my cargo pants - ah, faithful cargo pants with big pockets. You'll never leave me. I turned it on and shone it directly on the little floaty-guy.

He squealed and ducked out of the direct beam of light.

"I'm getting tired of calling you that," I muttered.

He blinked. "Huh?"

"Little version of my other self and things like that," I replied, shining the flashlight around. This room was rather bare. And seemingly without a door leading out of it. Great, just great. "I'm going to have to give you another name."

"I like my name!" was the indignant reply. 

"And what's that?" I asked absent-mindedly, kneeling down to examine the floor.

"Malik," was the simple reply.

"Malik is _my_ name," I glared. "You can be Nanashi."

"Why a Japanese name?" he asked, attaching himself to my hair.

"Because it means nameless," I replied, getting to my feet.

"Fine then." I could tell that he was pouting even without turning around. With a long-suffering sigh, I stepped forward.

Which turned out to be one of my not so brilliant moves, as I plummeted through the floor. I heard Nanashi give a squeak of alarm as he tightened his grip on my hair. 


	2. part the second

**Title:** Malik Ishtar, Tomb Explorer  
**Rating:** PG-13 for now.  
**Category:** Humour  
**Pairings:** None, at the moment. Subject to change.  
**Summary:** Malik falls into a tomb and gets more than he bargained for.  
**Spoilers:** Up to the end of Battle City, possibly the new Doomie arc. And spoilers for some stuff in the AE arc, too.  
**Notes:** Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider ate my brains. Story is from Malik's point of view.

  
  
  
I landed on the ground with a thud, which bruised both my tailbone and my dignity. It also caused me to loose my grip on the flashlight and it to fly somewhere that was not within my reach. I also felt the faint throbbing in my head of what was certainly the result of Nanashi pulling out various strands of my hair.

"Ow," was my eloquent comment to sum up the drop. At least it was more eloquent than Nanashi's squeak. I sat on the ground, rubbing my bruised backside. The first thing I noticed was that it was extremely dark - actually, that had been the second thing I noticed. First was the pain.

"It's dark," Nanashi stated. I could tell that was making him perk up for some reason. Why, I was not sure.

Of course, his next words cleared up why he was amused.

"WORLD OF DARKNESS. EEEEE!" He was zooming around the room. I could feel the displaced air from it. Ignoring him, I began to feel around on the ground, trying to find a flashlight.

"This isn't the World of Darkness," I informed him, still scrabbling around on the floor, searching for the flashlight. He didn't answer me, probably because he had smashed into a wall. Or was that too much to hope for?

Ahh, there we go. Flashlight, meet hand. Finger, meet power button. And let there be light.

The room I was standing in was lit up by the wonderful, wonderful flashlight. I aimed it upward to see the hole I had fallen into. It was rather high up. Which mean that I would either have to find something to stand up on to haul myself up through the hole or find another way out. The room was rather normal-sized, probably a bit bigger than my bedroom, but not by much. And there really didn't seem to be much in the way of things in it. There seemed to be one thing in the room - a kind-of pedestal with what looked to be a book on it. Near me was a door.

And the door prompted rather not-fun thoughts.

"Nanashi?" I called out hesitantly, swinging the flashlight around to illuminate the room. There was no Nanashi stuck against the wall. Which only meant . . .

"Wheeee!" his voice echoed back to me from Ra only knew where.

Hand, meet forehead. Forehead, meet hand.

"Nanashi, where the hell are you?" I called out, poking my head out of the room. What I saw made me want to smack my head against the wall.

A maze. Dammit, there was a fucking _maze_ outside the door. I ducked my head back into the room and looked around it once more, letting the flashlight beam shine over the thing in the middle. I sighed, then took off after Nanashi.

Needless to say, minutes later I was suitably lost in the maze.

Okay, I could do this. What did they say about mazes? If you go a certain way, you're always supposed to be able to find your way out.

"Nanashi?"

Still no answer. But I could hear something else. Like footsteps. Footsteps that were nearby.

_Tomb Robbers!_

That was what my brain was thinking wildly and I looked around for some place to duck into.

"Did you hear something?" It was a voice, coming from the direction that I was headed in. Maybe I should just go back to the room, find some sort of thing to step on - or try jumping a lot - and get out of here. After all, tomb robbers aren't very nice people.

"Of course not," a new voice was scoffing. "There's no one else here. It's a deserted tomb, for Christsake. Those archaeologists won't be back until morning."

I turned the flashlight off. Darkness was not good to see in - for them or me. I slowly began to back up, deciding that Nanashi could probably find his way out and scare the tomb robbers at the same time.

I hit a wall. Then I began walking along the wall and soon after that, found a doorway. By then, the footsteps were quieter. Hence the decision that I made to turn on the flashlight.

By doing that, I found out that I wasn't in the room that I came in through. This one had odd little statues in it.

I did a double-take while looking at the statues.

The statues that suspiciously looked like Duel Monsters. I backed away slightly. Duel Monsters equals bad experience in Malik's head. Duel Monsters are now bane of my existance. Well, aside from dryer lint, but that's a whole different story. A very bad story. We'll just leave it at that.

Unfortunately, my backing-up didn't really do good. Because, I felt something against my back, then heard a crash. Whirling around, I aimed the flashlight to see one of the statues on the ground, rather cracked and broken. I winced as I looked at the now-dead statue of what seemed to be the Black Magician Girl.

My wince turned into an expression of horror as tendrils of dark energy, which I commonly associated with the World of Darkness, began to form from the statue.

I squeaked as the energy gathered up the statue and seemed to grow human-sized. Then the energy seemed to disappear suddenly.

"Well, this is interesting," the girl said, looking around.

My eyes were probably rivaling plates in their size now.

"Who are you?" Her gaze had landed on me and the expression on her face was one of curiousity.

"Whoops," I said. Obviously, knocking over the statue was not a good idea.


	3. part the third

**Title:** Malik Ishtar, Tomb Explorer  
**Rating:** PG-13 for now.  
**Category:** Humour  
**Pairings:** None, at the moment. Subject to change.  
**Summary:** Malik falls into a tomb and gets more than he bargained for.  
**Spoilers:** Up to the end of Battle City, possibly the new Doomie arc. And spoilers for some stuff in the AE arc, too.  
**Notes:** Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider ate my brains. Story is from Malik's point of view.

  
  
  
"Are you the new guardian?" the girl asked, tilting her head to the side and tugging thoughtfully on a strand of blonde hair. She rested the bottom of her ankh-tipped staff on the floor and leaned it against her nearly bare leg. "You don't look very tomb guardian-ish. And your clothing is strange."

"_My_ clothing is strange?" At that, I raised an eyebrow. "I am dressed perfectly normal, thank you very much. Unlike yourself, who is wearing what appears to be a short linen dress with a low neckline."

She sniffed disdainfully and crossed her arms over her chest, probably to cover up the low neckline. "This is how we all dress in the court of the Pharaoh."

"Newsflash, there haven't been any Pharaohs for a good long time," I folded my arms.

"Well, I'm prettier than you," she said and then stuck her tongue out.

At that, I was quite taken aback. "Are not!"

"Are t - hey, what did you say about Pharaohs?" She had cut herself off and was now looking rather confused.

"There are no more pharaohs, they're all dead and have been for a good couple of thousand years," I replied, inching back over to the door and trying to hear if the tomb robbers were any closer.

"No Pharaohs?" The girl's voice now held a scared tone in it.

"Shh," I said, waving my hand at her, "there's tomb robbers in here and I don't want them to hear me. Or you."

"But there's no Pharaohs?!" The girl latched onto my arm, looking rather lost, confused and scared. "For thousands of years?"

"Yes," I replied impatiently. "This is probably one of their tombs and the tomb robbers are looking for shiny gold things to steal and sell and make lots of money off of. Now, be _quiet_!"

The girl gulped audibly. "Did they get the book?"

I blinked at the abrupt change in the subject. First, slight hysteria over there not being any Pharaohs and now concern for a book. "What book?"

"The book!" The girl replied urgently. "They can't get the book or else bad things will happen!"

"Bad things?" I raised an eyebrow. "You have to be more specific than that."

She frowned. "I don't know exactly what'll happen. Mahaado just told me that 'bad things would happen'."

"Well, he obviously wasn't big on sharing," I muttered under my breath.

"How dare you insult Mahaa - " she started to rage.

"_Shut up!_ They'll hear us," I hissed as I recognized the sound of footsteps.

"We have to get the book," she whispered urgently.

"Fine," I sighed. "Where's the book?"

"This way," she said, stepping around me and heading out of the room.

After many twists and turns, we were back in the room that I had started in. She pointed to the pedestal in the middle. It had something - actually, two things on it.

"Where have you beeen?" Nanashi whined. "I was bored."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "What is that?"

"That's Nanashi, my other half." I explained, not really wanting to go into details.

"Who're you?" Nanashi eyed the girl with interest. Or he was eyeing the low neckline of her dress. Most likely the second option.

"My name's Mana, the girl replied absently, her line of sight switching to the rest of the pedestal. "Oh, good," she sighed and looked quite relieved. "It's still here."

"Huh?" Was the intelligent comment I came up with as she made a beeline to the pedestal that Nanashi was sitting on.

"Move," Mana swatted Nanashi off the book.

A squeak and a thump signaled that Nanashi had not recovered from the shock of someone pushing him off the pedestal before hitting the ground. Against my better judgment, I hurried over and picked him up off the ground.

"What kind of book is it?" I asked, putting the dazed Nanashi into my pocket. The cover of the book looked old, very extremely old. And the symbol of the Eye of Horus embossed upon it made me think that this book was either a very good, or a very bad thing. Just call it a hunch, what with my experience with other things that have the Eye of Horus on them.

"A very special book. Now step away from it, kids." Well, that was a new voice. A not very friendly one. Mana and I looked up to see three people, who were obviously the tomb robbers I had heard earlier.

What made me say that? Well, probably the rather imposing nature of the three, along with the gun in the hands of the one closest to us.


End file.
